


History

by lookingforthestars



Series: Moments [1]
Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: A little bit of angst because our ship hits some waves sometimes, Chase POV, F/M, tons of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:54:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22135879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookingforthestars/pseuds/lookingforthestars
Summary: Everyone's life is made up of moments, good and bad, that make them who they are.
Relationships: Chase Stein/Gertrude Yorkes
Series: Moments [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1682056
Comments: 6
Kudos: 66





	History

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for the comments/kudos/bookmarks on my other stories! I'm having so much fun writing fics for this fandom and I think I'll probably have more coming lol.

Gert’s crying.

He hates when she cries. Sometimes, he’s not even sure what causes it. They’ll be having fun, playing, and suddenly she’ll get upset.

What Chase hates even more is that he knows how to comfort her. He does it for his mom all the time.

He drops the toy he’s tinkering with and scoots closer to Gert, gently putting his arm around her shoulders. She tenses up, like she’s embarrassed about being caught, before leaning into him. He rubs her back with one hand. Chase isn’t sure where he learned that. Maybe he saw it on TV somewhere, but it seems to work, because Gert’s breathing slows down and she wipes the last of the tears off her face.

“Sorry,” she murmurs, her voice scratchy. “I was just thinking about my parents and I got…I got this really scary feeling that something might happen to them like what happened to Molly’s parents.” Gert looks up at him. “That’s dumb, right?”

Gert is many things, but she’s not dumb. Before Molly’s parents, he didn’t know anyone who had died. His grandparents did, of course, but he’d never met them. But he knew Molly’s parents. They came over his house all the time. They were nice to him. He knew they didn’t treat Molly like his parents treated him.

“I’m sure your parents are okay,” is all he can think of to say, but it soothes Gert all the same. She’s a lot smarter than him, he doesn’t always know the right thing to say to her, but she’s his absolute best friend. He’ll always try to make her feel better if he can.

“Chase?”

He smiles down at her. “Yeah?”

“Thank you.” She burrows into him, her head on his shoulder. “I hope we’re friends forever.”

“Duh.” Why wouldn’t they be? She’s his favorite person in the world, period. Nothing could change that. “Friends forever.”

* * *

She looks so pretty.

Chase remembers the first time he thought that, about anyone. Of course it was Gert. She’d been his friend forever, they were basically inseparable, but in that moment, something changed. He looked at her and saw his best friend, but also something else, something he didn’t have a name for then.

He does now, but he wishes he didn’t.

She’s setting up the telescope, because he knows how to do it, but she always complains that he takes too long. Chase doesn’t mind when she does it. He likes watching her when she’s in the zone, laser focused. He likes watching her, period.

Not that he would ever tell her that.

Gert thinks he’s an idiot. Affectionately, of course, but he doesn’t miss the look in her eyes when she gets annoyed with him. She’s just so…serious. About everything. He doesn’t want to be serious anymore. He always has to be serious at home, around his father, and outside of the house he just wants to be a dumb kid, like the rest of his classmates.

He can feel them growing apart, splitting in different directions. They don’t have that much in common now. Which sucks, because he still enjoys being around her as much as he always has. He’s just not sure she feels the same way.

“Can you get the worksheet out?” She’s looking at him expectantly, and Chase realizes how spaced out he was for a second there. He digs through his backpack, pulling out the astronomy homework they’re supposed to complete, and hands it to her. “Do you plan to do any work tonight?”

Chase smirks. “What, and deny you the fun?”

Gert rolls her eyes, scanning the sheet and adjusting the telescope’s position. Chase only lets himself look at her when she’s distracted. When she’s focused on the stars, and completely unaware of how gorgeous she looks in the moonlight. People at school don’t really like Gert, don’t like her strong opinions or her good grades or her complete disinterest in being popular. But they don’t know her like he does. They don’t see her like this, unguarded, engrossed in something she loves, at peace.

He stares a little too long, and Gert unexpectedly turns to face him. Chase grabs his phone, swiping over the screen and pretending to play Candy Crush even though he didn’t have time to actually start a game, so he’s just on the intro screen. He’s not looking at her, but he can literally feel her frowning at him.

“If you’re not going to help, can you at least get us some lemonade or something?” she says, sounding irritated. She’s always irritated with him lately.

“Sure.” They both jump a little as his phone dings, and he checks his messages, internally rolling his eyes at Eiffel’s text. _Hey big man, what are you doing tonight? I’m home alone, bored._ “It’s just, uh, Eiffel.”

Gert narrows her eyes. “Why is she texting you so late?” He blushes – he’s not even sure why, there’s just something about Gert’s voice that always flusters him – and he can immediately tell that she’s misread it. “Jesus, you guys are sexting, aren’t you? Forget I asked, I don’t want details. At all.”

He just shrugs and lets her think she’s caught on. It’s better than the truth.

* * *

Gert’s handing out flyers again. This makes the third time in a month. He doesn’t know how she finds so many causes to care about. Maybe she’s just making them up at this point.

Chase sighs. He’s being a jerk. He can’t seem to turn it off anymore. It’s becoming second nature from hanging out with his stupid lacrosse buddies. They’ve never met someone they couldn’t tear down.

They’re shallow and boring and terrible. Brandon, Lucas, Eiffel, all of them. He’s so _bored_ when he’s with them, except when he’s actually playing lacrosse, which isn’t often enough. They just sit around and talk about girls and game strategy and how much school sucks, and nothing ever changes, and they don’t care about anything or anybody, and it’s wearing really thin.

Gert was never boring. Intense, sure, overwhelming, definitely, but never boring. He didn’t understand what she was talking about eighty percent of the time, but she had passion and it was fun to watch her get fired up. She cared. She cared about people and the environment and the world beyond high school.

It’s a little ironic that the thing he admires most about her is the reason he doesn’t think they’ll ever be friends again. She holds the people around her to the same standard that she holds herself, and he can’t reach it. After Amy died, he just wanted to check out, escape from reality, hunker down in his own stupid bubble. He doesn’t have the energy to care about himself, let alone his friends, let alone all of humanity.

She expects him to be something. To be better. Gert always believed he could be…more. He’s inclined to disagree.

His current friends are the absolute worst, but they don’t expect anything from him. He never has to watch what he says, never has to expand his worldview, never has to care about anyone but himself. It’s not right. He knows that. But it’s easy.

* * *

_I never thought that. I might have said that, often and loudly, but it was a defense mechanism. Because I felt ignored._

Gert’s words ring in his ears as she wraps her arms around his neck, her head on his shoulder. They mean more to him than she realizes. Her opinion of him always mattered, even when he pretended it didn’t. He hated himself for not being enough, for not measuring up. Hated the disappointment in her eyes when she looked at him.

But she doesn’t think he’s an idiot. Even though he’s given Gert every reason to write him off, she still believes in him. She still sees him – the real him.

It feels good. Almost as good as she feels in his arms right now.

There’s something familiar about this, something that reminds him of how comfortable he used to be with her, how she used to put her head on his shoulder when she was upset or tired. But there’s something new, some kind of heat, this _tension_ that he definitely didn’t feel with Karolina or anyone before her.

“I always saw you,” he admits, and it’s truer than she knows. For long periods of his life, Chase wasn’t really aware of anything _but_ Gert. But he buried it deep, because it was easier than changing.

“I know you did.” He can hear the smile in her voice, feel the shiver that travels down his spine as she plays with the hair at the nape of his neck. Chase feels like he forgets his own name when she looks at him, eyes big and curious, and it’s almost on instinct that he leans in to catch her lips.

The second they touch, the floodgates are open, and all he wants is her, all he _needs_ is her. He thinks she’ll pull away, because this can’t be right, she can’t actually want him like this. But she does.

And it’s the best moment of his life.

* * *

Gert hates him.

He’s said that before, about a million times, but he’s never truly believed it. Not until today, anyway.

She wants to forget him. Pretend he never existed, pretend he never meant anything to her. Forget every perfect moment between them because it’s all tainted now by his stupid, selfish decisions.

He should have tried harder to explain. Chase wants to make her understand that he didn’t leave _her_ , she didn’t do anything wrong. All he still wants is to have Gert by his side, running Pride and using its resources to accomplish all the good things she’s been fighting for.

But he doesn’t know if telling her that will make a difference. She’ll never understand what it was like to drown under the pressure, to feel incapable of taking care of the people he loves more than anything. She’s so much stronger than he is.

One day, if he’s lucky, she’ll hear him out. She’ll see that he’s trying to protect her, protect all of them, in the only way he knows how. Maybe he is a coward, but he’s not a traitor. Their safety still matters, and he won’t give up trying to help them.

When all of this passes, they’ll forgive him. They have to. He’s not sure what he’ll do if they don’t.

* * *

_I love you, Gert._

Once he identified it, Chase figured he’d probably been in love with Gert about as long as they knew each other. That feeling was always there, the one constant in their tumultuous relationship.

 _You’re brilliant, you’re strong, you’re not afraid to be unpopular._ It doesn’t escape his notice that these qualities are the opposite of what she’d called him…weak, stupid, insecure. Well, they say opposites attract, right?

He’s not an idiot, he’s not expecting to hear it back. Hoping, maybe, but not expecting. He’s expecting Gert to yell at him, but he’s prepared for that – at least if she starts a fight, they’ll be talking, and he can keep telling her how sorry he is for hurting her.

But she doesn’t yell. She’s silent, a million different things flickering over her face as his words sink in. For a second, he thinks she wants to say it back, wants to forgive him, and he allows himself the smallest possible amount of hope.

“You should get ready. We’re gonna leave soon.” Her voice is so emotionless that he barely registers it before she’s walking away from him. He just stands there like a moron, trying to figure out if he should follow her.

What’s the point? She’s never going to forgive him. The worst part is that he can’t blame her. He had her, completely, and he gave her up. And now Gert Yorkes is permanently out of his reach.

* * *

He’s so startled that he doesn’t kiss her back.

Chase kicks himself for this when Gert pulls away far too soon. He wants to follow her, wants to feel her against him again for the first time in months, but he’s too dazed to do much but stare at her with a dopey, lovesick grin on his face.

“Thank you. Just…thank you.” He wonders if whatever she was just talking about had to do with forgiving him, because all did was look up registration dates for Smith and that, by itself, is not enough to win back Gert’s trust.

“You’re welcome?” His voice is high and goofy, like he just inhaled a balloon’s worth of helium. But Gert is smiling at him in a way that he’s missed so damn much that he can’t bring himself to worry about it. “Does this mean…”

She stands, and he’s almost about to follow her when she surprises him by straddling his lap, shifting her weight to stay stable on the hammock. Her hands come up to cup his cheeks, and she shakes her head, the smile still plastered on her face. “I miss you. So much.”

Chase figures there’s plenty of time to talk later. He ignores the twenty questions in his head and kisses her, holding her tight, because he’ll be damned if he lets her slip through his fingers again.

* * *

This woman is impossible.

“I hate the way you make me feel!” Gert snaps, storming into their bedroom and throwing down the small black bag she’d been carrying all night. “I hate being-.”

“What? Vulnerable? Insecure?” Chase tosses his keys onto the nightstand. “You think you’re the only one who feels that way? You think that I don’t feel that way every time you lash out and talk to me like I’m an idiot? Every time you talk to some hipster douchebag who follows all the same activists on Twitter as you? Jesus, Gert, can we stop doing this?”

He’s tired. He already apologized ten times for being late to Karolina’s party and then striking up a conversation with one of her colleagues that Gert apparently mistook for flirtation. It wasn’t, and he can’t believe that Gert can still think he’s anything less than one hundred percent devoted to her, after everything they’ve been through.

She swallows, some of the color leaving her cheeks. “Chase…”

“No, Gert. I deal with it because when this is good, it is everything I need. But please stop acting like you’re the only one who gets scared. Stop acting like I have all the power here. I don’t.”

He always knew this would be hard. They’re wildly different, and both of them are too deep in love and too burned by the past not to worry about losing the other. But sometimes her anxiety can be…a lot.

Gert sits on the bed, her vitriol from the past thirty minutes suddenly dissipating. “I knew you weren’t flirting with her. Okay? Logically, I knew that, but I’m…Chase, I’m always going to be sensitive when it comes to you. Part of me is always going to wonder why you’re with me, wonder if I’m good enough for you, if you’re going to find someone else who makes you happier. I’m sorry that it makes me a nightmare sometimes but that’s the truth.”

He knows she thinks that way, but he doesn’t understand how. She’s been his whole world for so long, he doesn’t even know what he would do if he lost her. Actually, he does, because he has. And he knows that moving on isn’t in the cards. “Gert, I _love_ you.”

“I know. I know that.” She bites her lip. “You’re the only one, Chase. The only person I’ve ever wanted. When I watched you die, I thought…this is it, this is the day my world ends. And I spend so much time scared to feel that way again. I want to pretend that I’m strong enough to handle losing you, but I don’t think I am.”

Chase sits next to her, resting a hand on the small of her back. “You are the strongest person I know. You could get through anything.” He pushes a section of hair behind her ear, letting his fingers linger there. “You’re not going to lose me, Gert. If I ever leave you alone, it won’t be by choice. But I just need you to try and remember that when I mess up, okay?”

Gert nods. “Okay.”

* * *

He’s been waiting for this for a long time.

Like, way longer than he would ever admit. Because men aren’t supposed to imagine their weddings, right? _Way to be a cliché,_ he can imagine Gert saying.

He smirks.

The music starts, and Chase swears he’s dreaming. Because she looks…and her dress is…everything about this, about her, is perfect.

He can’t imagine how he’s looking at her right now, but Gert blushes, flashing him a shy smile. Chase suddenly wants to skip the vows and go straight to the part where he kisses her senseless.

“I don’t know what there is to say,” Gert starts, haltingly, when it’s her turn. “Words don’t always mean much, but actions do. And god, Chase, you’ve already done so much more for me than I could ever thank you for or repay you for. But I’ll try. I’m always gonna try. Every single day that we have.”

Chase just knows he’s going to cry, and he knows everyone is going to tease him about it, later. 

“The first time I kissed you, the first time I told you I loved you, we didn’t know if we were going to live through the night. And you thought that I didn’t mean it, that I was just afraid of the world ending.” He takes her hand, squeezing it gently. “But I wasn’t being impulsive. I thought the world was ending and I just wanted to spend whatever time was left with you. I want to spend every moment of the rest of my life with you, whether that’s one day or seventy years. It’s always been you. And only you.”

* * *

“What are you doing?”

He hadn’t heard Gert come in, but the second she speaks, he can hear the tears in her voice. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” Gert stomps into his lab, grabbing the Fistigons out of their metal case and holding them up. “What the hell, Chase? Were you just going to leave while I was at work and not say anything?”

It takes him a second to catch up, since he’s a little distracted wondering why exactly Gert _is_ home early from work, but her face is rapidly crumbling, and it dawns on him. “No! No, Gert, it’s not like that.” He’s so stupid. His lab is literally covered in cardboard boxes, his various inventions stuffed inside. It looks like he’s about to have the world’s most ill-advised garage sale.

“Chase, I swear to god…”

“Gert,” he says with a small laugh, putting his hands on her shoulders to steady her. “Breathe. I’m not going anywhere. I’m just trying to make the lab safer. I’m going to put anything dangerous in storage.”

She frowns, her brow crinkling in a truly adorable way. “Why?”

He’s smiling so widely he thinks his face might split. “I got a call while you were at work…wait, why aren’t you at work?”

“Stomach bug or something. I got so nauseated out of nowhere.” She puts a hand on her abdomen, not missing the change in his expression. “What?”

“Your doctor called. Gert, we’re…”

He trails off, so elated he can’t even really form the words, and because Gert is brilliant, it only takes a few seconds for her to connect the dots. “We’re having a baby?” she says uncertainly, tearfully, hopefully.

“We’re having a baby!” Chase confirms, somehow feeling even _more_ joy – he didn’t think that was possible – when Gert’s face breaks out into a smile and she shrieks. She throws her arms around him, giggling when he picks her up and kisses her hard.

“You…gave…me…a…heart attack,” she says between kisses. “You know if you leave me now, I will literally kill you.”

Chase grins. “Not a chance, baby. You’re stuck with me forever.”


End file.
